


Through Stars and Riptides

by flecksofpoppy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon - Manga, Gen, Implied Reincarnation, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Post-Canon, jeanmarco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 21:37:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11366124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/pseuds/flecksofpoppy
Summary: “Marco.” The name is whispered in his head, and if there’s anywhere beyond death, beyond the stifling suffocation of blood and blotting of stars, Marco would be there.“I think I did okay."





	Through Stars and Riptides

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emelianss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emelianss/gifts).



> This one's for [Angie](http://emelianss.tumblr.com) (tumblr user emelianss), and is also based on [ her wonderful art](http://emelianss.tumblr.com/post/161867904576/in-a-thousand-different-lifetimes-ill-find-you)! I hope this cheers you a little darlin'. <3
> 
> I tried to add in cats. And idk I threw in oranges cause like why not they're my brand and make me emotional like the lame ass I am. :'D

Death is a funny thing, and if Jean could compare it to anything, he might say it was like the ocean.

And here’s the thing: the ocean is a wide expanse of terror. It’s dark and salty and full of monsters.

_“Well, Jean,” Armin’s voice echoes in his memory, “that sounds like humanity.”_

_Jean’s assessment of the ocean: “You can’t skip rocks across it.”_

Armin never really was the same after the re-taking of Shiganshina.

Jean judged the sea as unsatisfactory because of this fact. Marco taught him to skip rocks, and as stupid as it was, Jean doesn’t like leaving things behind.

The ocean was established as a myth from their earliest training days, roots that wrapped around their minds of the bits Armin deigned to share. He was always clever, but more optimistic as a kid. Jean remembers, even if Armin doesn’t.

Jean remembers a lot of things. He remembers how the Walls cast shadows the few times he’d come back into the gate, how the dirt tasted in his mouth when he was still a boy and lost in hand-to-hand, how the innocence of childhood friendship is ruins and sours in this world of oceans and ships.

_“Have you ever tasted the gooey stingy monsters when they’re roasted?” Sasha bites another morsel off the stick she’s holding, looking at Jean with wide, excited eyes._

_They’re all trying to get their minds off the last crew of Marleyan soldiers who’d died in the scouting ships off the coast, one imprisoned in what Commander Hanji now calls the “brig” below._

Jean smiles a bit where he’s lying on his back. The sky looks so bright this way, even through a haze of blood in his eyes. He can feel it running down his cheeks now like the tears he hasn’t shed since Marco’s death, that he refuses to even now. Death after he fought so hard isn’t a time for weeping.

New food is something he can never turn down, not since the first time he’d tasted oranges after meeting Marco, and so he’d accepted Sasha’s offer. They were indeed tasty, and he’d smiled slightly, staring off into the ocean where they d stood on the seaside fort he’d been put in charge of since Levi had left for the first time since they took it.

And here’s how it is: memories tarnish as easily as the body ages, and Jean feels in it in his bones by the time he hits twenty. No one should feel old at such an age, and any soldier older than him jeers at the sentiment, even though they all respect him. 

But they’re not too harsh, since here are myths about the ones who survived the final stand at Shiganshina and lived to tell about it. According to the general populace, they’ve all gone mad, or they’re heroes. Sometimes, it’s somewhere in between, but it’s gossip for the sake of gossip than any real interest in the truth.

After all, Levi doesn’t tell stories, and he knows more than anyone about what really happened there.

_“You think you’re a murderer, kid?” Levi was never one to wax poetic. “I’ve known a lot of killers. You’re not one, at least not yet, Squad Leader Kirschstein.”_

_His eyes grew darker by the day, like the ocean before a storm, and he’d stopped coming to meals. Jean wondered if this was what survival felt like._

Jean figures he was never noble enough to lament the person he would always remember the way Levi Ackerman had; then again, maybe that was never what his life was about. It seemed like noble causes and freedom were old-fashioned concepts by the time they finally had taken the island of Paradis, and at the ripe old age of twenty, when Jean could feel the creak of his bones and the wail of his heart every time he woke up, he realized he really had grown into a relic.

_“Are you gonna go?” Eren is frank as an adult, less angry, but his eyes no less wild. “Are you coming, Jean? We have to go across the ocean to attack them before they attack us.”_

_Jean had disagreed; Eren had accused him of taking Armin’s side, of taking the Marleyan side even, but given Armin a pass since he was dying._

_Eren was dying, too, but he didn’t pay that fact much mind, just the way he never paid anything much mind that got in his way. He’d nearly reached a point where he could no longer regenerate his limbs at the time._

_“Good luck.”_

_Eren hadn’t spoken to Jean before he left on the ship bound for enemy lands; Jean knows they’d both regretted it._

“Marco,” he rasps, staring up at the sky as the stars come out, “I’m old.”

The tears are real now as they flow down his cheeks, and he relaxes into it like an embrace, remembers dust and when oceans didn’t exist or give him nightmares, when he didn’t still keep the bone of his best friend on a chain around his neck, when no one called him Squad Leader.

_“Jean,” Marco’s smiling, looking silly with dust in his hair and dirt on his face after hand-to-hand in the summer, “you did really well today.”_

_Jean had done terribly, and taken it as a direct insult to his pride. “Shut up.”_

_Marco had just patted Jean’s shoulder companionably, and they’d gone to dinner together._

_Later, Jean hadn’t said no when Marco had pressed their foreheads together in the shared bunk._

And here’s the thing: Jean fucking hates the ocean. He hates it because everyone he knows drowned in it. Mikasa, who wandered into its deepest parts trying to find Eren. Armin, who saw the depths and likelihood of drowning as freedom. Eren, who fled across its surface to take back the things his father had told him to. Sasha, who succumbed to its strange fruits. Connie, who would stare out at it late at night when he was on watch, saying the fort they stood in looked vaguely like Utgard. Levi, who drowned in his own sorrow, who they all let go when Hanji told them not to go looking when he disappeared.

And Jean, who hates the ocean, sinks into his memories like water, lets the blood flow out from his wounds back into the ground.

_“Did you know there’s a myth that we were all made from dirt?” Armin looks up at him, fascinated, his eyes slightly magnified from behind the glasses he now has to wear._

_Jean snorts, but doesn’t object. In some ways, after all he’s seen, he doesn’t actually doubt it._

_He’s aware of his own cynicism, and although he wonders if Marco would be ashamed of him, he can’t help but live in the present whether he wants to or not._

“Ashes to ashes,” he murmurs, intending to laugh but hearing a gurgle of blood instead as he closes his eyes. “That’s what… you used to say.”

He’s fading fast, and the stars disappear as his eyes shut heavily.

He knows his lungs are full of blood, that some Marleyan soldier punctured one, but he’d rather drown in his own blood than in the sea.

“Marco.” The name is whispered in his head, and if there’s anywhere beyond death, beyond the stifling suffocation of blood and blotting of stars, Marco would be there.

“I think I did okay,” he says, and then, the world is finally dark and still.

*

Jean works long hours. He never planned his life to be this way, with plenty of money but no people in it, and he feels like he made a mistake somewhere along the way.

Nonetheless, he’s grateful that the pet store right around the corner from his apartment is open late since he routinely forgets to pick up more food when he runs out, and now is no exception.

The bell tinkles as he enters and walks rapidly toward the cat section to grab the cans that he needs, and then retreats just as quickly to the register. The last thing he wants to do after a long day is be stuck in a retail store that smells like kibble.

That is, until he sees a face that stops him in his tracks: a guy with freckles, big brown eyes, and an expression that looks as shocked as Jean’s.

Jean feels like he’s seen a ghost. A chill goes through him, and a series of smells assault his nose that definitely aren’t kibble—salt, blood, oranges. His chin trembles inexplicably, but he shakes his head, trying to clear it of the confusing sensations.

“Can I help you?”

Jean looks up quickly, and the guy is staring at him expectantly. His nametag says Marco, and Jean glances back and forth between that and the shocked stare he’s of which he’s on the receiving end.

“Um, yeah…” he says, pushing the cat food forward. “Just this.”

“Okay.” Marco scans the food, and it beeps, flashing red on the number display as a five.

They continue to stare at each other wordlessly, seemingly transfixed, and Jean confirms that his own sense of being spooked is mutual.

“Your name is Marco?” he blurts out, searching desperately for an explanation. “Sorry, I’m Jean, by the way.”

“Yeah,” Marco confirms with a curt nod, waiting for an explanation of why Jean is asking.

“Oh, that’s my…” He’s about to say he recognizes the name, that he knows someone with that name, but then isn’t sure how. 

“Your…” Marco looks puzzled, waiting for the end of the sentence, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t know,” Jean replies, laughing a little nervously as he shrugs, feeling silly. “I was going to say my… something, but now I’m not sure.” Marco studies him a minute, and Jean feels suddenly absurd. He takes a step back, shoves his hands into his pockets, and shrugs. “Sorry for being weird.”

“I have a Jean,” Marco blurts out. “I mean, I know a Jean.”

“Really?” Jean asks, intrigued now and relived that Marco doesn’t seem taken aback by his weird statement.

“Um…”

The door rings, but Marco barely notices, staring at Jean intently. 

“Is it… a relative?”

“It’s my cat.”

Jean blinks, waits for a beat of silence, before deadpanning, “Your cat.”

Marco immediately blushes, turning away and ducking behind the register. “That’ll be five dollars, please,” he says, staring down at the keys and obviously pretending to do something else.

“Here,” Jean says, throwing a five dollar bill onto the counter. “Why did you name your cat Jean?”

“I don’t know,” Marco mumbles, shrugging a little, still looking embarrassed. “I was… six.”

Jean blinks. “Six?”

“My cat’s really old.”

“That’s kind of… weird.”

Marco looks up suddenly, and he nods fervently. “My parents thought I was interested in French, or had read too many of those Madeline books.” He swallows hard, staring intently. “But that wasn’t the reason. I just liked that name.”

Jean just shrugs, even though there are many unanswered questions running through his head. 

“What’s your cat’s name?” Marco counters after a minute.

Jean laughs, wishing that he’d named his cat the same thing as the hot guy at the pet store. “I don’t even remember her real name, but I call her Bottle now because she only plays with bottle caps.” Jean snorts, rolling his eyes. “She’s a brat and no matter how many toys I buy her, she won’t play with anything else.”

Marco laughs faintly, and he looks a little pale. “Funny.”

There’s silence as the food gets bagged up, but then Marco pushes a card for the store across the counter too. “In case you need anything else,” he says with a warm smile.

Jean nods, but then hesitates as he catches the way Marco’s still staring at him. 

“Your last name isn’t Bottle or something, right?” he blurts out, wildly curious.

Marco laughs a little, and somehow, it makes something in Jean feel warm. It’s a totally foreign sensation, and Jean doesn’t know what to make of it.

“No,” he assures, shaking his head. “That would be weird, right?” 

“Yeah.”

They stare at each other, until he says abruptly, “It’s Bodt.”

There’s a few beats of silence, until Jean replies. “Okay, that’s weird.”

“This is all weird,” Marco echoes, but he sounds just as dazed as Jean.

“Are you sure we’ve never met?” Jean asks suspiciously, raising his eyebrow. He doesn’t like feeling taken off guard, especially not by some random hot guy at the pet store.

“I’m sure,” Marco nods, before cocking his head to the side. “Believe me, I’ve been wracking my brain.”

They just look at each for a moment, until Jean cracks first. “Hey,” he says, trying to sound casual and not as eager as he feels, “do you want to get coffee after your shift ends?”

“Yes,” Marco replies immediately. “I get out at eleven. Where do you want to go?”

Jean looks at his watch and realizes it’s nine. There’s nowhere open much later, and although he wouldn’t normally invite a stranger back to his apartment, he can’t bring himself not to. It almost feels silly to _not_ invite Marco back to meet his cat. He’s still not sure why, but the feeling is there, plain as day.

“You want to come over? I promise, I’m not a serial killer.” That earns a small smile at the corner of Marco’s mouth that makes Jean happy for some reason. “I’m around the corner, and I have beer, tea, coffee. A cat. Whatever you want.”

“I like cats a lot,” Marco says, ducking his head as he takes off his apron and moves to lock the front door.

Jean already likes Marco a lot, but he doesn’t want to say as much, because that would be weird.

He waits patiently without asking more questions as Marco tidies up the store, ushering the last customers out and restocking some shelves. But he clearly doesn’t do a very thorough job, since he keeps glancing at Jean, as if doubting he’s still there.

Jean just sits, waiting, unsure why he’s doing this. But he knows he has to, so he does.

“Okay,” Marco says finally, appearing out of nowhere with a bag scattered with various colorful buttons Jean immediately wants to know the origins of. “I’m ready.”

“Cool,” Jean replies, standing and stretching. “I’m really close—five minutes.”

“I get to meet Bottle,” Marco says, sounding thrilled at this prospect.

They leave and Marco locks up. He glances at Jean, smiling a little. “I’m not officially management, but the boss trusts me to lock up.”

“You seem pretty trustworthy.” Jean snorts, and Marco just smiles at him a little.

They start down the sidewalk together, and Marco reaches into his bag to pull out a piece of fruit.

“You want an orange?” he asks. 

When Jean nods, he says, “Think fast!” Then chucks a clementine at Jean.

Jean is taken aback, but he catches it anyway, and somehow when the smell hits his nose, his breath catches. He’s not sure why, and he rips away some of the skin aggressively to take a bite out of it.

“I could eat these forever,” Marco remarks, already halfway through his own. “They taste like heaven.”

Jean nods, not trusting himself to speak for reasons he can’t name, and then looks up into the sky for a moment.

“Wow,” he says, “there are a lot of stars.”

“Clear night.” Marco taps him on the shoulder, and even though they just met, somehow the touch feels more natural than most things Jean has felt. “It’s nice, but I want to meet your cat.”

“Yeah,” Jean says softly, before grabbing Marco’s shoulder and turning him. “Marco?”

“Huh?” Marco asks, his eyebrows raising in surprise as he meets Jean’s eyes.

They just stare at each other, and Jean can feel the tension around his mouth and eyes intensifying, until Marco’s fingers brush very lightly against his temple, then his forehead.

“I know that’s weird,” he says very softly, tilting his head to the side and smiling ever so slightly, a sweet expression, “but…”

“Yeah,” Jean murmurs, matching the smile.

And even after they stopped being strangers that night, Jean knows they never were at all.

He wonders years later, lying in bed next to Marco one night, staring at the glow-in-the-dark-stars on the ceiling they put up when he started feeling afraid of the dark, if this is fate being kind.

He wonders if, maybe, sometime in a past life, he did something right. Maybe he was someone good. 

But he figures if Marco was his friend, he must have been; and finally, the terror of dark water is a distant memory.


End file.
